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Masterful Musings

Drivel From the Ketchup Boy

We Don't Need no Stinking English

mood: happy

When I was in my previous job, I'd have endless arguments with my volunteers. These wonderful people, mostly considerably more youthfully-challenged than I, believed that the evolution of the language stopped the day they set foot in school. No more changes after that. These hapy memories prompted me to write an English poll. All these questions are dead serious, now!

Re: some extra comments on the poll

You could always go out with the cast of Corner Gas. XM and Sirus are two types of satellite radio that have good sound, almost no commercials, and in many cases more variety and less restrictions than standard radio.

Well, first I want to know who those two (so far) people are who consider their grammar and spelling impeccable? I would like to bow at their feet. I did not go that far but I think I'm pretty literate(I responded "better than most," but I did once tell a magazine editor that if the computer's grammar check disagreed with my copy editing, she should believe me over it).

Second, why am I the only one who is not blind and doesn't care how badly others spell? After all, the more poor spellers there are in the world, the better it makes me look! LOL, just kidding. I threw that in there just to be ornery.

The XM question? I'm an other; I prefer to hear what surrounds me--sounds of rain, traffic, voices, birds, etc.

I will comment that honestly, until I joined the SP list, with so many blind people on it, I had never seen so much phonetic spelling. It surprised me at first, but not so much now.

confessions

I was one of the two impeccables. I am the child of a line of wordsmiths and grammarians. I learned to spell by playing Scrabble at age seven and was well on my way to ESL certification when I ran into a stumbling block in the early 90s (no access to the IPA). I wish that I had had the fortitude to fight it... I went on to other things but now have studied four languages and hope to pick up at least a couple more in my lifetime. Last year I turned in a paper to a professor in my M.Div. program whose native language is not English. He began correcting the grammar in my paper and had to retract his corrections, which were all due to his lack of facility with English.

Re: confessions

Re: confessions

What amazed me was reading my gransmother's accounts of how she learned to spell... She only got through her first year of college, but I would have never known that. Btw, I've seen some pretty atrocious spelling from a few sighted people, but it's generally different from what a friend of mine calls "blind spelling." Some misspellings by blind people can also be attributed to people learning contracted braille without a solid grasp of what the contractions stood for... Some children are allowed to do spelling tests by writing the contracted form of the word. I was required to provide the contracted form and the full spelling; thus I got a braille test and a spelling test.

Re: confessions

Yes, that's what I meant; not that blind people make more spelling mistakes than sighted people, but that theirs tend to be different in nature. I've noticed that when blind people misspell words, they tend to either spell an unfamiliar word phonetically or to confuse homophones. Sighted people tend more toward trying to reproduce a picture that they have in their minds of the correct spelling, but that they can't quite recall. So, some of their misspellings are actually quite funny. The one I'll never forget is when a friend of a friend left a note on her door and misspelled "not" as "nought"! Wow! Sorry to go on and on about this topic, but it's one I love.

I listen to my MP3 CDs or regular CDs or watch DVDs and I don't have any satellite radio at all. I've got an HD radio receiver, though. I can get some XM streams though Winamp, but they don't have the full set. Would like to sit down and listen to Sirius. I think I'd only want to get either of these if I had evidence that they play more than just the regular corporate stations play, such as in the classic album rock category or oldies, for example. I swear these corporations think most radio listeners are stupid people who don't care much for the unfamiliar or who are willing to take some chances. Everything has to be safe and predictable for the confusticated advertisers.